Paraguay #4
Cannabis cultivation is believed to have started in Paraguay in the Department from Amambay, which became an important marijuana producer, taking advantage of its condition as a dry border, poor police control, corruption of the authorities, etc. Currently, the cultivation has spread to other departments of the Republic of Paraguay (SENAD, 2001).
The basis of Paraguay’s economy, since the time of the Jesuits, has been the production of grass. mate Ilex paraguariensis, being the country one of the great exporters until the mid-1960s. The Department of Amambay was, then, one of the biggest producers, as it is considered the center of origin of this plant. The yerba mate traders were the founders of the capital city of that department, who traveled in ox-cart trains to the port city of Concepción, so that this merchandise could travel by boat. In this region on the border of Paraguay with Brazil, the modernization of agriculture led to the disappearance of large extensions of forests with millenary trees, which are currently almost impossible to observe due to deforestation. The modernization also erased thousands of hectares of native yerba mate, considered “green gold” in the Department of Amambay at that time, from the scenery of the Cordillera de Amambay. The “green gold” was replaced by soy, pastures and cattle, which implied an increase in the concentration of land and means of production. In this context, cannabis emerged as a alternative and a temptation for poor family farmers excluded from agricultural modernization processes. This new crop brought solutions to some and many problems for others, both in rural and urban areas.
Amambay is the thirteenth department (state) of the Republic of Paraguay and borders the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. The department is geographically located in the extreme north of the Eastern Region of Paraguay, between the parallels 55°28‟ and 57°00‟ of west longitude and the meridians 22°05‟ and 23°05‟ of south latitude. Its limits are: to the north, Brazil, separated by the Apá river and the Amambay Mountains; to the south, the Department of Canindeyú; to the east, Brazil, separated by the Cordillera do Amambay; and, to the west, the departments of Concepción and San Pedro. It has a territorial extension of approximately 12,933 km2 and is divided into three municipalities: Pedro Juan Caballero, capital of the department, Bella Vista Norte and Capitán Bado.
But how did this plant arrive in Paraguay? And at what historical moment? Melamed (2009) offers some indications about the entry and expansion of cultivation in Paraguay, for its production, not for consumption as a drug: We can read that Ley 20, title 18 of book IV de la Recopilación de Leyes de Indias, corroborates that the Emperor Don Carlos and the Prince Governor in Ponferrada, on the 13th of June 1545, are in charge of the virreyes and governors who will seed and benefit in the Indias Lino and Hemp, and seek that the Indians become apply to this farm, and understand in hilar and tejer lino‟. Also index: „El 12 of number of 1777, by Royal Orden, and of the document established in the Recopilación de Indias, let the Indians and other Pueblos de eso Domains be applied to the seed, cultivation, benefit of hemp and linen, so that these fruits as primary materials can be brought to Spain free of all extraction and entry rights in estos Reynos to promote las Fábricas de Lienzos.
According to the farmers who produce cannabis, they often use the term “partner” or “partner” to refer to the person with whom they maintain relationships and commitments to produce the plant. These people, in turn, maintain relationships and commitments with the “bosses”, owners of production. The first hypothesis, according to an oral report by a trafficking “partner” who also speaks in Portuguese, is that: “Colombians were the introducers of cannabis in the Department of Amambay, specifically in the municipality of Pedro Juan Caballero in the early 1960s ”. At first, the Colombians tried to grow crops in Bolivia, but the results they obtained were very low, as the seedlings had low germination. Bearing these situations in mind, traffickers they drove to the Serra do Departamento de Amambay, already in Paraguayan territory, to test those cannabis seeds, and achieved results that were very encouraging to their interests. According to the report of the same key informant: “In this region, a very high germination and emergence of seeds and a very encouraging plant growth has been achieved”. They soon concluded that the plant had established itself in that region and started, from that moment, on the commercial exploitation of cannabis. A second hypothesis, reported by another informant, admits that the cannabis also arrived in the early 1960s, but coinciding with the arrival of Japanese migration in this part of Paraguay. Japanese immigrants arrived in 1956, a contingent of 137 Japanese families, and were settled in the Department of Amambay, contracted to grow coffee at Estancia Johnson, de la Compañia Americana de Fomento Economico (CAFE). Three years after the arrival of Japanese migration, CAFE broke and newcomers had to migrate to another income-generating activity.
With the collapse of the Cafe, most of these lands were prepared to receive cultivation, and these were used to start production in the vicinity of the city of Pedro Juan. A third hypothesis, also indicated by an informant, argues that “the marihuana came to this region in 1965, when nadie knew it, at least as a drug”, since the prohibition practically did not exist. The arrival of the seed actually happened by chance, when an airplane made a forced landing 5 km from the urban area of Pedro Juan Caballero, in the place known today as Isla Madama. Of the occupants of this plane, no one knew what happened. The fact is that the plane had Uruguayan registration and would have departed on the Brazilian side, was en route through Paraguayan territory and was headed for somewhere in Uruguay. As the days went by, some people arrived at the device and, out of curiosity, they noticed that inside it there were some bags loaded with seeds unknown to everyone who had been there. As no one knew those seeds, they turned to a resident of the city of Pedro Juan Caballero, known as “Gordo Barboza”, in order to request his collaboration to identify the seed. Being Brazilian, it was thought that he could recognize that rare seed. “Gordo Barboza” replied that he did not know those seeds and offered to take them to the city of Dourados, in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, where he had an acquaintance who worked in a laboratory, known as “Lamparita”. Indeed, “Lamparita” recognized the seeds as belonging to cannabis. Thus, “Gordo Barboza”, in possession of this information about the uses of the plant, encouraged the first commercial plantations of this plant in the Department of Amambay, in the community of Fortuna. “Gordo Barboza”, a native of Naviraí, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, would thus have inaugurated the first known cannabis trafficking route to Brazil, the Pedro Juan Caballero, Paraguay, and Naviraí, Mato Grosso do Sul route. In the early days of drug trafficking, transporting the drug was relatively easy, because the police, when carrying out some type of control, did not know it and, when asking what it was about, had the answer that it was “Japanese alfalfa”.
This first border cannabis trafficker was murdered in Pedro Juan Caballero, in the 1990s, on his doorstep, presumably on the orders of a known drug trafficker. But, regardless of what is reality or social imagination about the introduction and expansion of cannabis cultivation, the fact is that the plant is part of the daily life of the inhabitants of the Department of Amambay, mainly due to two factors: on the one hand, the impetus given by traffickers encouraging cultivation and, on the other hand, the region’s climatic advantages that facilitate good productivity. Such conditions contribute to involve many farming families in the production and circulation networks of this drug. It is worth noting that this production is rarely carried out by individual producers, since almost all producers are interconnected to drug trafficking groups, through a “partner” who performs the interconnections. Criminal organizations that came, above all, from Brazil, settled in this Paraguayan region and created/recreated trafficking networks, with the involvement of traffickers, authorities, cannabis producers and various social agents who perceive in trafficking possibilities for economic gains and power, as well as staying at the top of the hierarchy of organized crime. In the 1960s, illicit border activity was coffee smuggling, but later cannabis trafficking became the most profitable illegal activity. According to Araujo (2012), João Morel, a recognized trafficker in the region, hired family farmers to grow marijuana, whether on their own land, leased or abandoned. The plantations attracted a powerful drug trafficker who operated in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, who started to buy with a view to supplying the Comando Vermelho (CV) retail trade in Rio de Janeiro. With this “partnership” of the drug trafficking network set up, marijuana plantations in Paraguay expanded from Amanbay to other departments: Canindeyú, San Pedro and Alto Paraná.
Such situations contributed to constituting what can be called the marijuana boom in the region and the beginning of a new “Paraguay War” (ARAUJO, 2012, p. 110). In the early 1990s, the leader of the Rio favela , on one of his crossings across that border in Capitán Bado, established a friendship and partnership with a family that became well-known for their role in drug trafficking, which in the border area received the nickname “Clan”. When commercial cannabis plantations began, it was relatively easy to keep the cultivation underground. It was enough to invest in opening of a clearing in the middle of the great forests of Amambay, which then existed covering most of the territory. The preparation of the soil of the cultivated fields consisted of let the area dry and then burn it. After the first rain, sowing was carried out. From the 70’s onwards, the great felling of forest in the country began, to allow the expansion of the agricultural frontier. Currently, there is great concern in the It makes sense to avoid that crops imply the disappearance of forests almost completely. Therefore, the current marijuana cultivations are situated in places with topography of difficult to access and distant from the places of residence of young farmers. Currently, the young farmers mobilize on motorcycles, usually without documentation or with cold documentation. They are employed, without any employment relationship, to develop the cannabis culture in national parks, legal reserves of large landowners, indigenous communities and some other state properties, which until now have Forest.
it is observed a power vacuum, which is filled by the organized mafia, which stimulates activity illicit, in a subordinate production system. In other words, young farmers they work in a land that is neither theirs nor their family; produce, but cannot fix the price of their product, they have no way of looking for another buyer, because the mafia does not admits speculation, all its production must be handed over to the “partner” of the mafia operating in the place. Fraga and Iulianelli (2003, p. 125), in their research on cannabis in Northeastern Brazil. Brazil, point out that, “with the vacuum of official credits, drug trafficking started to proposal for small farmers to cultivate the herb”. Finally, as unscrupulous rulers began to plunder the country, poverty began a spiral escalation, reaching half the population. Hence, cannabis turned into a viable alternative for farmers, very advantageous in relation to traditional crops.
Cannabis sativa produced in the lands of Amambay has gained fame in the world market for its quality, evaluated by its higher content of Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), an active chemical substance that provides the toxic effect. Cannabis obtained elsewhere in the world is less concentrated in THC, which is explained in some way by the climate and soil conditions that characterize the Department of Amambay. The municipality of Capitán Bado has become known around the world for the production of cannabis. In Amambay, one hectare of marijuana produces around a ton and a half ready-to-use drug, a volume that allows for a gain of approximately 30 million guaraníes, equivalent, in reais, to 15 thousand at today’s exchange rate. With the climate and soil satisfactory, Cannabis sativa is capable of producing up to three crops per year, while the Gossipium sp cotton has only one annual production. You can easily get to the conclusion that this culture is much more profitable than the lawful culture. living in regions remote areas, on small plots of land, with few roads for the flow of any product, peasants, especially young people, see marijuana as an irresistible temptation, in order to get an increase in their income (ARAUJO, 2012). On the quality of cannabis produced in Paraguay, which, if legalized, would be the main export product of the country, Melamed (2009, p. 51) points out: The quality of Paraguayan Cannabis is beyond all discussion; prueba de ellos es it demands that it be on the black market for recreational use. For quoting a pair for examples: in the capital city, consumers refer to Paraguay as the northern empire and since the late 1980s, in Ibiza, Spain, one of the recreation center of the „jet set‟ europeo, la marihuana paraguaya ha vendió displacing the famous „Colombian Dorada‟. But that they weigh a few, this is un good quality control and market study for a natural resource It could be one of our main export products.
The Word Group Report (UN, 2008), an agency linked to the United Nations against Drugs and Delito (UNODC), disclosed that Paraguay is the largest cannabis producer in South America and the second largest in America. On the other hand, the same report emphasizes that the country is an important provider of hash in the world, ranking among the ten largest providers. In that country, approximately 5,900 tons of cannabis were collected, just over half of the total production in South America, estimated at 10,000 tons. Cannabis sativa on this frontier presents two phenomena: acclimatization and naturalization. Relative to the first, being an exotic plant from this region, it develops with the greatest naturalness, hence its ability to produce throughout the year. This means that the plant’s physiology has adapted to that environment. Relative to the second, it multiplies naturally and does not require special treatment to produce seed at all times. of the year.
This naturalization is also explained by the fact that, where there was a plantation of cannabis, in successive years, the seeds continued to germinate. These plants originated from seeds from previous years are known as “guachas” plants. the laymen in the matter they might think about letting it grow and then harvesting. However, they don’t are of no interest to cannabis growers because they are quite irregular in their germination and very heterogeneous in their growth. Above all, by the stand that they represent per unit of surface, would not pay off economically work with the “guacha” plants. In 2010, a curious fact happened on the property of the Universidad Nacional de Asunción (UNA), which is located 20 km from the city of Pedro Juan Caballero, in the district of Raúl Ocampos Rojas, better known as the community of “Chiriguelo”. There the Experimental Field of the Facultad de Ciencias Agrárias, subsidiary of Pedro Juan operates Caballero, with an extension of 102 hectares, of which only 30 hectares are used normally. The remaining 72 hectares constitute one of the last reserves of native forest. of Amambay. In a routine check of technicians and employees, a cannabis plantation of approximately 4 hectares, at its point of harvest. The fact was communicated to UNA authorities, and they gave the order to officials to establish contact with cultivators with the following message: “Considering that cultivation finds at your harvest point, collect everything as soon as possible and abandon the place and never cultivate again here, which will be denounced before the authorities of repression." This was done and, until today, they have not returned to invade the property for this type of work in hiding.
Source: Extracted from the Doctoral Thesis: RURAL YOUTH AND CANNABIS PRODUCTION ON THE DROUGHT BRAZIL-PARAGUAY BORDER.
Wonder if any of them actually do, or if Google is just in on the game… they’ve certainly got me pegged, that’s for sure.
Hopefully a male and female survived, the goo is probably not a good sign for the rest.
